


starting to live the lies we tell ourselves

by thelemonisinplay



Series: verity richardson cinematic universe (vrcu) [8]
Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 06:15:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29467101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelemonisinplay/pseuds/thelemonisinplay
Summary: In the moment, she knows full well she’s being destructive but gets an awful sense of satisfaction from it. She knows, too, that she’ll regret this once the anger’s cooled. And she knows she can’t keep doing this to people and expecting them to keep coming back to her. But in the moment, the destructive angry satisfaction is easier than listening to the voice of reason in the back of her mind.
Relationships: Douglas Richardson & Verity Richardson
Series: verity richardson cinematic universe (vrcu) [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2077494
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	starting to live the lies we tell ourselves

**Author's Note:**

> this is the first thing i've written that's more than like, a single tiny scene in ages, so congrats to me on that i guess
> 
> title from shura's touch. my brain can only handle like 4 different artists rn.

Sometimes you meet somebody and everything’s so _easy_ from the beginning, it doesn’t feel strange to see them daily or to text them constantly or to tell them things you’ve barely even processed yourself. Everything falls into place so naturally without you even having to think about it.

Verity hasn’t had a relationship like this in years, and never a romantic one. Last time she’d found someone naturally this easy to get along with was maybe her friend group in sixth form, Phoebe included, but even then she’d not progressed to sharing. Before _that_ had probably been back in Year Seven.

It’s precious, this closeness. She almost doesn’t trust it.

Six months go by and she’s met Frankie’s parents, friends, family. She has Frankie’s brother’s phone number saved in her phone, Frankie’s parents as Facebook friends; sometimes she meets Frankie’s friend Nick for lunch after it turns out they work in the same building. It’s nice, being so entangled in somebody else’s life.

Verity, on the other hand, hasn’t even mentioned her girlfriend to anybody except Phoebe. And even that was only because Phoebe unexpectedly came home early one cold Sunday morning as they were drinking coffee, curled up in a nest of blankets on the sofa waiting for the heating to kick in.

(Verity hadn’t quite even come out to Phoebe yet at the time. It was fairly early days with Frankie, but she’d been out to everybody else for _ages_ , she’d just not quite been sure how to bring it up. Until Phoebe had come back from her boyfriend’s to find her teenage best friend tangled up with another girl on the sofa. Bless Phoebe, all she’d done in the moment was raise her eyebrows at Verity, saving her questions until Frankie had gone home a couple of hours later.)

It just feels too sacred to share.

Mum asks if she’s seeing anyone and she answers noncommittally, because she can’t put words to this, can’t imagine how she’d describe it without spoiling it. Dad doesn’t ask directly, just sort of dances around it, and it’s so _easy_ to avoid the subject with him. They’re doing better these days, but there’s still a petty, teenage part of her that doesn’t want him to know about her life. And a part of him too worried to push.

She’s never had a relationship this good – and is that just because this is her first time trying something more serious with a woman? Is it because all her previous attempts at _relationships_ were with men? But no, that can’t be entirely it, can it, because surely things wouldn’t be this good with just any woman.

It doesn’t matter, really, she supposes. No need to examine things too closely, not when they’re this perfect.

She should really have expected it, though, ten months in, when Frankie asks why she’s not met any of Verity’s family yet. They’re in Liverpool for the day – it’s Frankie’s favourite city, and Verity’s never been – and they’ve spent hours browsing every gallery in the Tate. They’re standing outside now, clutching coffees and staring across the river. Verity mentions Millie, wondering out loud if she ought to bring her sister here next time she comes to stay.

“Do I get to meet her sometime?” Frankie asks, and it’s gentle and non-intrusive – she knows more than anybody else does about the precise levels of weird Verity feels about her family – but it’s a question Verity’s been dreading. Her sister’s by far the safest person for Frankie to meet, but she can’t very well introduce her girlfriend to Millie and nobody else. And she’s going to have to _tell_ them all if they’re being introduced.

She can’t say no. She wants this to work, she’s sure of Frankie in a way she’s rarely been sure of anything in her life. But she can’t help but worry – that her parents will be _weird_ , that Frankie will see how Verity is with her family and change her mind, that Frankie and Millie won’t like each other.

“Course you can,” is what Verity says, an easy smile on her face that doesn’t at all match how she’s feeling. “I’ll see when everyone’s free.”

Dad and Millie are both available on a Saturday, two weeks’ time. Mum’s actually also free that day as it turns out, but Verity doesn’t think she can handle the weirdness of seeing both her parents and her sister in the same room on top of the already stressful situation of introducing them to her girlfriend. They meet in Manchester, a restaurant: neutral territory.

She doesn’t exactly explain what the meeting is until the very last minute, wants to avoid as much of the questioning as possible, so she drops it in the family Whatsapp the night before and turns her phone off immediately.

“You okay?” Phoebe asks. It’s one of those rare Fridays they’re both home, just the two of them, so Verity’s twitchiness is immediately obvious.

“Frankie’s meeting my dad tomorrow,” she says with a grimace.

“That’s good, isn’t it?”

Verity shrugs. She doesn’t really know how to explain that no, it’s not, not really; that somehow her relationships with both her girlfriend and her family are hanging on a precipice and this meeting is going to knock them all off it.

Frankie comes round in the morning for breakfast, and there’s something so peacefully _right_ in being at home with her and Phoebe, someone’s lazy weekend playlist on in the background, chatting about nothing. Verity perches on the kitchen counter just listening to the two of them discussing the characters of a film she hasn’t seen, sunlight streaming through the window, and for just a moment she’s not worried about the merging of two very different parts of her life.

Everything’s fine with Phoebe, after all. Maybe it’ll be fine with her family, too.

The panic returns just in time for the designated meeting time. Frankie also seems a little on edge; Verity supposes all her talk of her strange, dysfunctional family has worried her girlfriend. She squeezes her hand in what she hopes is a reassuring way, tries to pretend she’s not absolutely dreading what’s about to happen.

Millie, of course, throws herself at both of them in hugs that somewhat diffuse the tension. Dad’s more reserved, but he’s friendly and polite and shows an interest, which visibly calms Frankie down. He seems a little off in a way that somewhat unnerves Verity, but then she’s never introduced him to anybody before. Perhaps this is just how he _is_ when he’s meeting partners.

It’s nice, actually. Good food, a relatively normal conversation, and neither Verity nor Dad are on the defensive which is always something of a worry. Millie and Frankie bond quickly: Frankie’s earrings were designed by some artist Millie follows on Instagram, and they’re both so naturally good at getting to know people Verity almost isn’t sure what she was worried about. Dad asks a lot of standard parent questions like _so what do you do_ and _are you from Manchester originally,_ which Verity can’t help but find a little grating. She pushes the feeling down, though: she knows she’s being irrational, knows they’re innocuous questions, knows he’s just trying.

Verity’s almost optimistic by the time the bill comes round. There’s a gentle quibble – Dad wants to pay for the whole thing – but that’s sorted easily enough when Verity gets hold of the card machine first. They pay, and she finally relaxes, thinking that she’s survived this, things are going to be just fine, and while she’s still got to get through a meeting with Mum she’s significantly less worried about that.

“So how long have you two been together, then?” Dad asks, as they’re lingering, finishing off drinks and such.

Frankie looks a little surprised at the question. “Nearly a year now, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, almost,” agrees Verity.

“A _year_?”

Verity’s heart sinks. She spots the hurt on Millie’s face, the surprise on Dad’s before he carefully disguises it.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” says Millie.

“What do you mean?” says Frankie, who’s frowning.

“I didn’t even know Verity _had_ a girlfriend until yesterday.”

This, Verity hadn’t foreseen. Though perhaps she should have remembered Millie, the only Richardson blessed with emotional honesty in addition to a slight lack of tact.

“You didn’t tell them about me?”

Verity breathes slowly. She can’t blame Millie for this; even if it _was_ Millie’s fault, Verity struggles blaming her for anything. And it’s not Millie’s fault, not at all. If anything, Millie deserves an apology.

But perhaps not as much as Frankie does.

Verity can’t quite work out what to say at all, though. She can’t lie here – it’s still her first instinct, of course, but between Frankie and her family there’s nothing she can say that wouldn’t immediately be seen through.

There’s a long silence, in which she’s frozen in place with everybody staring at her, and then Frankie disappears.

Verity shoots a smile at Millie. “I’ll be back in a bit,” she says, before chasing after Frankie.

She finds her girlfriend in the toilets, leaning against the walls scrolling through her phone. Luckily it’s just the two of them inside.

“Hi,” says Verity, cautiously.

Frankie looks up.

“I don’t want to talk about this right now,” she says, and returns her gaze to her phone.

“Okay,” says Verity. There’s a short silence, in which she tries to assess the scope of the problem. Frankie is upset, of course, upset enough to flee the scene, but Verity doesn’t quite know the best course of action here. She’s seen Frankie angry and unhappy before, but never really at anything _she’s_ done. Nothing that wasn’t an easy fix, anyway.

“I need some space,” says Frankie. “I’ll call you later.”

This seems to be a dismissal. Verity swallows, takes a deep breath, and arranges her face into something appropriately neutral before heading back to Dad and Millie, spinning through several potential reasons for Frankie’s disappearance.

“Everything okay?” says Dad, and he’s got that concerned little frown on.

“Fine,” says Verity. “She’s just on the phone, she says she’s got to head home and check something for her landlord.”

It’s a weak lie, but nobody questions it.

“Well, Millie and I probably ought to be going before it gets dark, but you’re welcome to come along if you’d like.”

Verity isn’t really sure – she wants, really, to sit and process on her own, but Phoebe’s got friends round so her flat perhaps isn’t the place for that tonight. Obviously she can’t go to Frankie’s like she’d planned.

“Okay,” she says. “I’ll just grab some things.”

Dad’s got his car, so they drive down, Millie chattering away from the back about the upcoming ski trip and her GCSEs, and, somewhat more grumpily, Katie and her new _boyfriend_. Verity lets the stories wash over her, chipping in when she’s asked a direct question but otherwise sitting in silence. She can feel the concerned glances Dad’s sending her, but she ignores them.

Millie disappears up to her room when they arrive at Dad’s, leaving Verity and Dad to themselves. This is familiar enough by now, a sameness Verity is usually comforted by. She’s not sure she’s in the mood for conversation today, though.

Dad seems to sense this, offers her a cup of tea and sits down with a paperback.

Verity turns her phone back on, having switched it off in the car, not wanting to deal with anything that might come through on the journey with an audience.

It rings as soon as it comes on. Frankie.

“Hi,” she says, and disappears through the back door into the garden. She doesn’t want Dad overhearing this.

“Hi.”

“I’m sorry,” says Verity, quickly, sitting herself down on the patio, back against the wall of the house, arms wrapped around her knees. “I didn’t know –”

“I just don’t understand it,” says Frankie, and she sounds so hurt. Verity wishes she’d not come to Fitton, that she’d hung around long enough that they could have had this conversation in person. But then maybe Frankie wouldn’t have wanted to anyway. “It’s been nearly a _year_ , and you didn’t even mention me?”

“I didn’t know how,” says Verity, knowing even as she says it that she sounds ridiculous. How can she explain this? She’s never been able to explain any of the fucked up patterns she spins through to anybody before, why should this be an exception? “I thought … I don’t know, it seemed like I’d ruin it by telling them.”

“ _What?_ ”

“I –”

“You met my brother after a _month_ ,” says Frankie. “My parents both ask about you every time we speak. My dad fucking _loves_ you. None of that ruined anything.”

“No, but you’re –” Verity stops herself. What’s she going to say? You’re _normal_? You’re lucky to have a family that you’ve always been reasonably close to?

“I thought you might be worried about me meeting them, fair enough, you’ve always said you’ve got a weird relationship,” Frankie continues as though she’s not even heard Verity’s interruption. “I didn’t want to push. But to not even _mention_ me? After all this time?”

“I don’t tell them anything, it’s not just you,” says Verity, _knowing_ that sounds weak and not knowing how to fix it. It’s funny, really, usually by this point in an argument she’s spitting out barbs carefully constructed in the moment to hurt as much as possible. Today she’s just very, very badly defending herself. She’s not sure which is worse. “Things seemed too good to share, I don’t know – I don’t know how to explain this, it made sense at the time.”

“Right,” says Frankie coolly. “Okay. Well.”

“You’re not even fucking _trying_ to understand,” says Verity, dragging herself to her feet, Frankie’s forced coolness finally dragging out her usual bite.

“There’s nothing _to_ understand, you’re not making any sense.”

“I never _do_.” This, Verity is convinced of: she’s always been certain (though never quite consciously so) that she’s fundamentally incapable of proper relationships with other people, that she’s simply too detached and _weird_ to be properly close to anybody. She knew, deep down, that not telling her family was going to be a problem all along, but she’s also genuinely been too afraid to do anything else, clutching the relationship close to her chest so that the outside world had no chance to damage it. “This – it’s nothing to do with you, I just –”

“You thought we were fragile enough that your family would ruin things?”

“Oh, _fuck_ you.” In the moment, she knows full well she’s being destructive but gets an awful sense of satisfaction from it. She knows, too, that she’ll regret this once the anger’s cooled. And she knows she can’t keep doing this to people and expecting them to keep coming back to her. But in the moment, the destructive angry satisfaction is easier than listening to the voice of reason in the back of her mind. “You’re so determined to think the worst of me, aren’t you? You –”

“No, Verity,” says Frankie, and she’s icily calm now which Verity recognises as a bad sign even as she allows it to fan the flames of her fury; she’s pacing up and down the patio in her socks taking a strange, savage pleasure in the dampness of her feet. “I assumed you’d done the normal thing of not hiding away our relationship for a year, you exceeded my expectations for _the worst_.”

This hits like water to flame, stops the inferno of rage head on, and Verity stops pacing, watches as the anger washes suddenly away. She wonders how much damage it's done.

“I’m sorry,” she says, so quietly she’s not sure Frankie can even hear her. “I didn’t think of it like that.”

“I can tell, Verity. Just give me some space.”

She hangs up, then, and Verity doesn’t move.

She doesn’t know how much time passes between the end of the phone call and the back door opening again, but she suddenly becomes aware that she’s freezing.

“Everything okay?” asks Dad. She scrambles to her feet, pulls on an expression that she hopes is approaching neutral, a little embarrassed to be caught having emotions.

“Fine,” says Verity, and walks towards the door, following him inside. “Millie still upstairs? I think I owe her another apology.”

She’s not really chatted to Millie since it had all happened, too preoccupied with her girlfriend, she doesn’t trust her relationship with Millie enough to leave something like this undiscussed. In the back of her mind at any given moment, she’s half expecting Millie to drop out of her life, just like Verity had with her dad.

(She’s not sure Millie has it in her to cut somebody off, if she’s completely honest, but that’s almost worse. She doesn’t want to have a relationship with her sister based only on a sense of obligation.)

“She came down for that reality thing with the boy band, but I think she’s on the phone now,” says Dad. He sits back down on the sofa. “Are you _sure_ you’re alright, darling? Is everything okay with –”

“It’s fine,” says Verity, perching herself on the arm of the sofa, hands on her knees, eyes fixed somewhere above Dad’s head. She can see how unconvinced he looks, and she can’t in fairness judge him for that. She’s not doing a very good job of sounding convincing.

She glances at her phone, just to have an excuse to look at something that isn’t Dad, to pretend she isn’t being _seen_. The chat with Frankie is open, the last message from this morning, something about being five minutes away, followed by several emojis that have become almost a shared language between the two of them. One text, a hundred different injokes. Almost a year of her life.

Is that it, then? Is that – she needs _space_. What the fuck does that mean? She’s never done this before, not really; she’d never cared enough in any of her previous relationships to stick around after arguments. Nothing ever seemed worth it.

“Why do I always fuck everything up?” she asks, softly, not really sure if she’s directing the question at herself or at Dad, not even really sure if she wants him to have heard.

“You don’t,” says Dad, just as softly. So he _has_ heard. She glances up from the black screen of her phone to see him looking at her intently, her own dark eyes staring back at her from across the room.

Verity laughs, because the idea is so outrageous. “I don’t remember the last time I had something good and didn’t catastrophically ruin it,” she says, and it comes out surprisingly calm for something so honest.

“Oh, sweetheart.” Dad’s still staring at her, a little sadly, and she resents the pity she sees there but can’t summon up the energy to be properly angry with him for it. Besides, what use would it be? “Sometimes I wish you weren’t so much like me.”

“You were _married_ by my age.”

She’s missing his point on purpose, even as she wants to lean into the conversation and the advice and sympathy she can see Dad wants to give, she can’t help but evade it. And she knows that’s the whole problem. Not letting him in is damaging everything else in her life.

“Well to be exact, your mother and I were separated when we were your age,” says Dad. “And look how that turned out, in the end.”

“You’re still friends. That doesn’t sound so bad.”

It’s funny how things work out. He’s been married three times (divorced three times) and so far as Verity can tell, the only ex he’s actually in touch with is her mother. Emily, by the sounds of things, prefers to send messages via Millie. Verity isn’t sure what happened with the third wife, wasn’t there for any of it, but there were no children. No reason to stay in touch unless they’d wanted to.

“True,” says Dad. “But I’m sure you and Frankie can still be friends, if you want to.”

Verity shrugs. Does _space_ mean the end? Does Frankie have a reason to stay in touch, if it is?

“I don’t know if we’re … she just said she wanted space.”

Dad nods. “That’s good, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” says Verity. That last conversation plays over again in her head: Frankie’s hurt, Verity’s inability to stop pushing even when she’d known it was a bad idea. She wonders how much of her life is nothing but self-sabotage. “I don’t think so. If I’d just been fucking _normal_ about it –”

“Hey. What’s done is done, you can’t do anything about it now. All you can do is be better going forward.” There’s a pause, and then, hesitantly: “was there a reason you didn’t tell us about it? I assume it was important to you if you’re this upset about what’s happened.”

And there’s the question, the big, impossible question. But maybe it’ll be easier, explaining it to Dad. He is, after all, far more like her than she’d like to admit.

“I don’t know. It sort of felt like it was too good to be true, like I’d be tempting fate by talking about it, or something.”

“Okay,” says Dad. “Well. That’s a good start. Have you told her that?”

“Yeah. She didn’t think much of it.”

Verity wonders why she’s able to dissect the relationship like this now, where she hadn’t been able to so much as mention it before. A year of her life hidden carefully away, suddenly exposed. 

“She’s just so … _normal_ , you know?” Verity continues. “I’m – I’m a fucking _mess_ , Dad. Like. Look at me. Mum doesn’t know the first thing about my life. I’ve known Phoebe since I was sixteen, I _live_ with her, and I only came out to her by accident. Millie – I’m – I have no idea why she puts up with me. I don’t know how to have a normal relationship with anybody, I don’t know why I thought I’d be able to have a girlfriend, I –”

Dad stands up, pulls her into a hug, and her face is pressed stupidly against his chest because she’s still perched on the arm of the sofa but she clings to him anyway, ignoring the discomfort. It’s helpful, actually. Shuts her up at least, calms the spiralling thoughts somewhat. A little embarrassing, but she doesn’t care enough about that to put an end to it right now.

“You’re not a mess, Verity,” says Dad. He pulls away from her, and she keeps her gaze fixed on the wall behind him so she doesn’t have to make eye contact. “People make mistakes in relationships all the time. God knows I have, but so has everybody else I know.”

“But mistakes are _all_ I make,” says Verity.

“Oh, darling.” He sits back down next to her, and she slides off the arm of the sofa to sit beside him. It’s easier to avoid looking at him that way.

“I just keep everyone at arm’s length and … I didn’t, with her. I told her things I’ve never told _anybody_. But even then I was just keeping my distance in another way.”

“But that’s something you can work on if you want to,” says Dad. “I have three ex-wives because I didn’t think I could be any different from what I was, but I can. You can. And you’re letting me in right now, aren’t you?”

Verity pauses. Swallows. She supposes she is, but she sort of _hates_ that she is; his awareness of it makes her want to retreat back inside herself and never talk to anybody again.

“You called me that day, out of the blue, and we talked for the first time in years. And look at us now.”

“Yeah,” says Verity. “But that doesn’t help – I don’t know if she’ll ever want to talk to me again. I don’t know …”

“No, but you’re never going to be able to know what other people are going to do. You’re never going to be able to control that. I can’t tell you how to make relationships work, I’ve never quite got there myself, but I hear honesty and communication are important. And trying looks a lot better than not trying.”

Verity nods. He’s right, and she knows that. But there’s such a wide gulf between knowing something and being able to act on it. _Knowing_ isn’t going to make it any easier for her to open up.

“Can you put Channel 4 on?” shouts a voice from upstairs, followed by footsteps. Millie appears in the room, throws herself onto the sofa arm Verity has vacated as Dad turns the television on.

“There’s plenty of space on the sofa, Millie, you don’t have to sit up there.”

“I like it up here,” she says. “You okay, Verity?”

“Yeah,” says Verity. And then forces herself to look at her sister. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Frankie.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t say anything for a _year_ ,” says Millie, shaking out her plait and letting her hair long and loose around her shoulders. “That’s ages! I tell you everything!”

“Millie,” says Dad in a warning tone. “Maybe –"

“I know,” says Verity. “If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think Frankie was very happy about it either.”

Millie frowns. “What do you mean? Did she break up with you?”

“ _Millie_ ,” says Dad.

“I don’t think so,” says Verity. “I dunno. She said she needed space. But I should’ve told you.”

Millie slides off the sofa arm and squishes into the tiny gap between it and Verity, leaning her head on Verity’s shoulder.

“She seems nice, I hope you work things out,” says Millie. And then, after a short pause, “I like to know what’s going on with you.”

“I know.” Verity slides an arm around her sister. “I’m sorry.”

Dad gets up to make tea for everybody as he tends to do when Millie’s reality shows start, but Verity stays put, clinging to Millie, wondering how long it is before her sister sees what Frankie has finally seen: that Verity maybe just isn’t worth the effort.

**Author's Note:**

> thank u as always to timeladyleo & GnomeIgnominius for living the vrcu dream (nightmare?) w me <3
> 
> also thank you anyone else reading this extremely niche content!


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